Dateline: Feb. 7, 2007
Making Stuff
Have a look at this beautiful guy! Isn't he GORGEOUS?! (Hmmm... somehow the Crocodile Hunter accent just came to mind... *sigh* Doesn't the whole world miss Steve Irwin?). I spotted him yesterday as I was taking the girls rollerblading and leaning down to put the leash on Lucy. It was that ORANGE that just jumped out at me from the grass. The little guy is dead, but must have been freshly so, because he was in such immaculate condition. Thought I'd snap a photo, just for the sheer joy of his coloring, but then I realized that, other than the shocking orange, his irridescent blue body, black with gray wings, and white spots fit perfectly with the new Flickr Project Spectrum triad for February/March. How CONVENIENT, since I don't often work just in blues and grays and wasn't quite sure what I'd do. He fits quite nicely.
Earlier in the year Ali Edwards asked her readers to come up with an idea of one word that would encompass your vision for yourself this year. I learned about her site through the wonderful Creative Mom Podcast. If you haven't listened to Amy's podcast yet and you love to (or used to love to) play in the world of creativity, you are denying yourself of a fabulous, self-indulgent (calorie-free!!) treat.
Well, I wasn't in time to participate with my own word at Ali's site, but I've taken one for myself anyway and that is: CREATE. That is just where I am right now. I have, for all my life, dabbled in the arts. I have drawn, written, journaled, painted, embroidered, cross-stitched, made dolls, made salt-dough Christmas ornaments, made beads with polymer clay, scrapbooked, photographed, written poetry, sung, danced, beaded, and on and on it seems.
Currently, I am crazy for knitting and working in my visual journal, experimenting with watercolor pencils and collage.
I have worked my way through Julia Cameron's The Artists Way - twice, The Vein of Gold and Walking in this World once. I have Natalie Goldberg's books on writing and painting and have read Annie Lamott's books more than once too. And, of course, there are others - so many others - that I have looked at from the library that have inspired and continue to inspire me to this day.
AND YET, I have never thought of myself as an artist because I don't do this professionally. Also, I have never settled on one particular medium, nor achieved "stellar-quality" (gallery worthy?)work, because I don't have one particular passion. I have also never really felt driven to even want to have my work in a gallery; have never wanted to make myself or my projects accountable to someone else. I always just want to have fun.
Somehow, I have felt, this disqualifies me.
I love being a mom. I love homeschooling my children and I haven't had scads of time to be working on any large-range series or anything with a theme or direction or vision. Instead, I have made paper mache masks for Halloween (an awesome giraffe head, to be precise!), pretty, layered, hand-made Valentines and other hand-made gifts, photographs to hang around the house, and some paintings too.
A couple of years ago I just decided to tell people that "I like to make stuff." Isn't that funny? It's not as loaded with expectations as the word "artist" is, and I always felt I didn't have a body of work to show to anyone anyway (as if they'd be expecting me to "prove it.").
But now... here, online, I have found a huge community of others with that same creative URGE, that just keeps pushing me onward wanting to explore mediums and colors and textures and yes, just make stuff.
So, I've really given myself over to doing that this year. I've done it all along, but now I am giving myself specific time during each day and have focused on that - if not one type of artistry.
I have found that...
it is important.
Very important.
And I can't actually say why, per se, but it is. And it is good to feel validated; to understand, as a creative person, that the urge - the desire - is real and not at all unusual. More importantly to me - and I say this with all sincerity - is that, while I like to like what I create and even more to love what I create, (it is a great natural high to love a poem or drawing or whatever I have done) - that alone - the end result - is not important. I am sure that if I never saw what I felt was improvement, or never made something that was pleasing to me, I might feel differently. But I don't think that for a creative person that is even necessarily possible. Because what you are making is always part of you. And art is always objective. In fact, as you begin to like what you're doing a little bit more each time you do it, as you begin to appreciate your own unique style of creation, you therefore begin to appreciate and like... you. To me, art is the ever-changing, unfolding, visual or audible discovery of ourselves. And therein lies the drug, I'm sure.
So, this year, no matter what I call it - or me - doesn't really matter anymore. I will just be here creating. I'll be participating where I can - there are SO many wonderful ideas out there on the web. But with others or alone, that's what I'm going to be doing: just me, just here, just making stuff.
Comments
Feb. 7, 2007 - Well said!
Posted by Amy
What an amazing and powerful post! CREATE is a wonderful word for the year. It will be a treat to see all the things you make and do and create and imagine this year!